Excitement

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  As Renate guided Harry and me toward our window table, we passed by a glass-walled room where a private party was being held. I caught a glimpse of a woman who had Anaïs Nin’s petite figure, arched brows, and heart-shaped face. I heard that high, silent ring that accompanies coincidences we sense are fate, and I determined somehow to find out if the woman really was Anaïs. As Harry and I sat with leather menus in our hands, the October sun warmed the floor-to-ceiling windows and turned the ocean carnival hues. I noted that Harry was broad-shouldered and attractive, despite his parrot-like overbite. He held forth about a book he’d just written: “It explains Libertarian economics in a way people can understand.” I looked past him through the glass wall to the stylishly bohemian group enjoying their private party. They were bending in laughter like willows in the wind, reveling in the unfettered life I wanted, while I was worrying about an essay test and half listening to what Harry was saying. “In the next book I’m going to apply my Libertarian philosophy to the topic of sex.” That regained my attention. I imagined a nation of self-pleasuring Libertarians who didn’t believe that sex should be shared. Harry shook the ice cubes in his second scotch and leaned in towards me. “There’s this myth that couples are supposed to have simultaneous orgasms. But my research shows it almost never happens.” “What research? Just your own?” I asked. “No, I’ve talked to men and women, married and single, and all these people told me that they feel like failures at sex because they don’t have simultaneous orgasms. But the truth is almost nobody does.” “That hasn’t been my experience,” I said. “Did you talk to anyone besides Libertarians?” Beyond the translucent wall, hors d’oeuvres were being served. A waiter held out a tray to the woman with Anaïs’s elegant carriage. Something she said to the waiter made him smile broadly and stand more erect. I excused myself from Harry for the restroom. On my way back, I stopped at the door to the private party, hearing the unmistakable jingle and cymbal song of Anaïs’s accented voice: “I don’t accept that your so-called objectivity is more true than my subjectivity.” I slipped inside the door and was about to approach her when the middle-aged hostess Renate stepped in front of me. “Excuse. This is a private party.” “I just want to say hello to Anaïs Nin.” “And who are you?” Renate glared at me through impossibly long eyelashes. I told her my name, and she crossed her arms. “I’ve never heard of you, and I am Anaïs Nin’s best friend.” “We met in New York,” I said as I dashed toward Anaïs. Renate, wearing three-inch heels, got there before me and announced, “Anaïs, you have a fan who wants to say hello, Tristine Rainer.” “I met you and Hugo in New York,” I reminded Anaïs.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Renate and I were as excited as twelve-year-old girls. She phoned the Writer’s Guild and found out that at minimum, what we would get paid to write one screenplay was more than I could make in five years of waitressing and more than Renate had ever made in her lifetime as a painter. “We have to call Anaïs in New York,” Renate said. “She might not want us to write the screenplay. Remember she said she wanted Marguerite Duras, who wrote Hiroshima Mon Amour.” I hadn’t thought about that, or the fact that neither Renate nor I had ever written a screenplay and didn’t know how. It all just seemed to be working as magic. We phoned Anaïs and she was agreeable to everything, including our writing the screenplay. Renate asked a neighbor who was a William Morris agent to negotiate the deal. The agent said he didn’t know Alan Rosen, but money was money. In a few phone calls, he’d worked out the terms. All that remained to be done was to sign the papers at Alan’s office and collect our commencement check and Anaïs’s $50,000 option check. Renate planned a little celebration party. Alan was to come at two in the afternoon and at four Raven, Bebe, Joan Houseman, Curtis Harrington, and others were to arrive. At a few minutes before two, Renate placed a bottle of Mumm’s into an ice bucket, opened the door to the room she hadn’t set foot in since Peter’s overdose, and set out the champagne and hors d’ oeuvres in there. By 2:20 p.m., she and I sat alone in that haunted room. We had, out of nervousness, eaten all the cheese and crackers. We kept checking the time. Alan was late. “He must have gotten lost,” Renate said. When he was an hour and a half late and it was time for the guests to arrive, I called his number. An operator with his answering service told me, “We are no longer taking messages for Alan Rosen.” “Do you have another number for him?” I asked. “That’s all I know. His service was discontinued for non-payment.” When I told Renate, she frowned. “This is not a good omen.” She phoned the agent. “Let me do some research,” the agent said. “I told you I’d never heard of him.” When Renate’s guests arrived, they tried to keep her spirits up. They knew what a big step it had been for her to entertain again. But after several hours of waiting, without any word from Alan or the agent, they made their exits, hugging Renate. When the agent finally did call back, Renate held the receiver so I could hear. “Well, he told the truth about one thing; he does live on a luxury ranch in Arizona,” the agent said. “He’s the gardener. Before that he was a card mechanic at a Vegas casino. Once a con man, always—” “Oh no!” Renate cried.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Your neck, back, legs, and feet muscles are working together to turn your body, which is now instinctively extending and lengthening. Your eyes narrow as your pelvis and head shift horizontally to give an optimal, panoramic view of your surroundings. What is your internal state? What other intangible aspects of yourself do you feel or sense in response to seeing the shadow? Most people will feel alert and engaged, curious about what it may be. Perhaps there is a hint of excitement and anticipation whetting your desire to find out what the shadow is. There may also be a sense of possible danger. When an animal senses a change in its environment, it responds by looking for the source of the disturbance. The search may consist only of a single eye slowly scanning its surroundings. The animal orients itself toward a potential mate or source of food, and away from danger. If the change is not indicative of danger, food, or a potential mate, an animal such as the hadosaur will simply resume its previous activity. The behavior of an animal when it experiences and responds to novelty in its environment is called an “orienting response.” These instinctive responses are as primitive as the reptilian brain that organizes them. They allow an animal to respond fluidly to an ever-changing environment. All animals (including humans) possess these coordinated patterns of muscle movement and perceptual awareness. Despite our differences from the lizard and the impala, new sounds, smells, and movements in the surroundings evoke the same basic response patterns in us. Ivan Pavlov, the great Russian physiologist, recognized and described these orienting responses in his monumental work on animal conditioning. He called the innate characteristic of this response the “shto eta takoe” reflex. Attempts at a literal translation have resulted in its being called the “what is it?” reflex. A more exact translation, however, suggests something closer to “what is that” or “what is going on here” or “Hey man, what’s happening!”, which emphasizes the amazement and curiosity inherent in the response. This dual response (reacting plus inquiring) is widely recognized as the dominant feature of orienting behaviors. For humans as well as other animals, expectancy, surprise, alertness, curiosity, and the ability to sense danger are all forms of kinesthetic and perceptual awareness that arise out of these orientation complexes. In the traumatized person, these resources are diminished. Often, any stimulus will activate the frozen (trauma) response rather than the appropriate orienting response (i.e., upon hearing a car backfire, a traumatized vet may collapse in fear). Orienting responses are the primary means through which the animal tunes into its environment. These responses are constantly merging into one another and adapting to allow for a range of reactions and choices. The process of determining where it is, what it is, and whether it is dangerous or desirable happens first in the subconscious.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  2. Distinguish between fear, terror, and excitement. Experiencing fear or terror for more than a brief moment during traumatic play will not help the child move through the trauma. Most children will take action to avoid it. Let them. At the same time, be certain that you can discern whether it is avoidance or escape. When Sammy ran down the creek, he was demonstrating avoidance behavior. In order to resolve his traumatic reaction, Sammy had to feel that he was in control of his actions rather than driven to act by his emotions. Avoidance behavior occurs when fear and terror threaten to overwhelm the child. This behavior is usually accompanied by some sign of emotional distress (crying, frightened eyes, screaming). Active escape, on the other hand, is exhilarating. Children will become excited by their small triumphs and often show pleasure by glowing with smiles, clapping their hands, or laughing heartily. Overall, the response is much different from avoidance behavior. Excitement is evidence of the child’s successful discharge of emotions that accompanied the original experience. This is positive, desirable, and necessary. Trauma is transformed by changing intolerable feelings and sensations into palatable ones. This can only happen at a level of activation that is similar to the activation that led to the traumatic reaction. If the child appears excited, it is OK to offer encouragement, and continue as we did when we clapped and danced with Sammy. If the child appears frightened or cowed, on the other hand, give reassurance but don’t encourage any further movement at this time. Be present with your full attention, support, and reassurance; wait patiently while the fear subsides. 3. Take one small step at a time. You can never move too slowly in renegotiating a traumatic event. Traumatic play is repetitious almost by definition. Make use of this cyclical characteristic. The key difference between renegotiation and traumatic play is that in renegotiation there are small incremental differences in the child’s responses and behaviors. When Sammy ran into the bedroom instead of out the door, he was responding with a different behavio r, this is a sign of progress. No matter how many repetitions it takes, if the child is responding differently, even slightl y, with more excitement, with more speech, with more spontaneous movements-the child is moving through the trauma. If the child’s responses appear to be moving in the direction of constriction or repetition instead of expansion and variety, you may be attempting to renegotiate the event with scenarios that involve too much progress for your child to make at once. Slow down the rate of change and if that doesn’t seem to help, re-read this chapter and look more closely at the role you are playing and how the child is responding; perhaps there are some signals you are missing.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  I followed his instructions, amazed that my body twisted and whirled under the guidance of his hands and that my feet kept the rhythm without tripping. He pulled me close so I was aware of my breasts pressed against his chest and of his leg pushing between my thighs. The thumping congas, the blasting trumpet, the squealing sax, our hearts drumming violently, harder, faster, built to a crescendo. When the music stopped, people stood apart, panting, but Jean-Jacques squeezed his body against mine so that our pounding pulses slowed together. I looked around the spinning room to find Anaïs. She and Hugo were speaking in Spanish with Mongo. From what I could pick up, they were asking for a son they’d danced to in Cuba. When it began, without separating our clasped torsos, Jean-Jacques and I began to move in a slow dance. When I pulled back to look into his face, his mouth was closed in an ironic smile, though his dark eyes were kind. I had assumed that Jean-Jacques’s age and sophistication put him out of my league. The creases in his cheeks and the hardness of his mouth had frightened me, but now I was flowing with the feelings in my body. I was scared and excited, yet my muscles were relaxed and melded to his. He put his mouth to my ear and blew softly, giving me a shiver. He whispered, “I can tell how firm your breasts are under that schoolgirl dress.” I knew he was being fresh, but liquid pleasure coursed through me.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “It’s Mexican prepared raw fish. Delicious. You’ll love it. Rupert and I ordered it all the time in Acapulco.” With a maternal gesture, she lifted a bleached strand of my hair sticking to my neck. Her voice sweetened. “Now you tell me a personal story as we walk, as I told you my story of meeting Rupert.” I was struck dumb. Much as I had fantasies of becoming a writer, I had no idea how to tell a story. “I can’t think of any.” “Then tell me about how you got the university letterhead.” She kept us moving through what now seemed a maze of alleys. “Did you steal it?” I said I had asked for the stationery and the secretary had just given it to me; it wasn’t much of a story. “What were your feelings?” she asked. “Scared.” “When have you felt that way before?” That gave me an idea. I did have a story. I decided to tell her about the one time I had stolen something. It had only been the year before. “You never stole things as a child?” she asked, unbelieving. “No, never. Did you?” “Yes, of course. Money from my mother’s purse. Candy. It’s normal.” “Well, I was sensing that there was something not normal in my never having stolen anything,” I began. “I wanted to perform an act of rebellion against authority, just for the sake of doing it. I was tired of always being the good girl.” “That’s a promising beginning. Go on.” She smiled. “It was first semester, sophomore year, and we were reading Camus’s The Stranger in Dr. Inch’s world lit class.” “Who is Dr. Inch?” “He’s the chairman of the English department.” “What is his first name?” “Minor.” “Minor Inch? Rrreally?” She giggled. I nodded but wanted to get back to the weird, personal story I had never told anyone. “That was when I realized I was an existentialist.” She gave me a look of revulsion. “Aren’t you an existentialist?” I asked, surprised. “No!” She seemed irritated. “What does it have to do with your story?” “After reading the end of The Stranger, I wanted to prove I was an existentialist by doing an action, like the shooting at the end, that had no reason except my will. I decided to steal one shoe.” “Why just one?” “Because I would have no use for it. It would be a purely existential act with no motive or self-interest involved.” She stopped where we were, in a little cobblestone square we’d come to, and looked at me as if I were nuts. I tried to explain my thinking, but she pushed me. “Just tell me what you felt when you were taking the shoes.” “Shoe. Singular. First I walked through the shoe department looking for the easiest box of shoes to take without being noticed. I didn’t care if they were my size because I would never wear them anyway.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Presently the butler came back and said gravely that Mrs. Crossby had just seen the doctor and had now gone to bed, as her hand was aching, but that Tony felt better and sent his love. He added: ‘Madam says would you come to tea on Sunday? She’d be very glad indeed if you would.’ And Stephen answered: ‘Will you thank Mrs. Crossby and tell her that I’ll certainly come on Sunday.’ Then she gave the message all over again, very slowly, with pauses. ‘Will—you thank—Mrs. Crossby—and tell her—I’ll certainly come—on Sunday. Do you quite understand. Have I made it quite clear? Say I’m coming to tea on Sunday.’ CHAPTER 171I t was only five days till Sunday, yet for Stephen those five days seemed like as many years. Every evening now she rang up The Grange to inquire about Angela’s hand and Tony, so that she grew quite familiar with the butler, with his quality of voice, with his habit of coughing, with the way he hung up the receiver. She did not stop to analyse her feelings, she only knew that she felt exultant—for no reason at all she was feeling exultant, very much alive too and full of purpose, and she walked for miles alone on the hills, unable to stay really quiet for a moment. She found herself becoming acutely observant, and now she discovered all manner of wonders; the network of veins on the leaves, for instance, and the delicate hearts of the wild dog-roses, the uncertain shimmering flight of the larks as they fluttered up singing, close to her feet. But above all she rediscovered the cuckoo—it was June, so the cuckoo had changed his rhythm—she must often stand breathlessly still to listen: ‘Cuckoo-kook, cuckoo-kook,’ all over the hills; and at evening the songs of blackbirds and thrushes. Her wanderings would sometimes lead her to the places that she and Martin had visited together, only now she could think of him with affection, with toleration, with tenderness even. In a curious way she now understood him as never before, and in consequence condoned. It had just been some rather ghastly mistake, his mistake, yet she understood what he must have felt; and thinking of Martin she might grow rather frightened—what if she should ever make such a mistake? But the fear would be driven into the background by her sense of well-being, her fine exultation. The very earth that she trod seemed exalted, and the green, growing things that sprang out of the earth, and the birds, ‘Cuckoo-kook,’ all over the hills—and at evening the songs of blackbirds and thrushes.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It all happened quite simply as such things will happen. It was Roger who introduced Martin Hallam; it was Stephen who explained that she danced very badly; it was Martin who suggested that they sit out their dances. Then—how quickly it occurs if the thing is pre-destined—they suddenly knew that they liked each other, that some chord had been struck to a pleasant vibration; and this being so they sat out many dances, and they talked for quite a long while that evening. Martin lived in British Columbia, it seemed, where he owned several farms and a number of orchards. He had gone out there after the death of his mother, for six months, but had stayed on for love of the country. And now he was having a holiday in England—that was how he had got to know young Roger Antrim, they had met up in London and Roger had asked him to come down for a week, and so here he was—but it felt almost strange to be back again in England. Then he talked of the vastness of that new country that was yet so old; of its snow-capped mountains, of its canyons and gorges, of its deep, princely rivers, of its lakes, above all of its mighty forests. And when Martin spoke of those mighty forests, his voice changed, it became almost reverential; for this young man loved trees with a primitive instinct, with a strange and inexplicable devotion. Because he liked Stephen he could talk of his trees, and because she liked him she could listen while he talked, feeling that she too would love his great forests. His face was very young, clean-shaver and bony; he had bony, brown hands with spatulate fingers; for the rest, he was tall with a loosely knit figure, and he slouched a little when he walked, from much riding. But his face had a charming quality about it, especially when he talked of his trees; it glowed, it seemed to be inwardly kindled, and it asked for a real and heart-felt understanding of the patience and the beauty and the goodness of trees—it was eager for your understanding. Yet in spite of this touch of romance in his make-up, which he could not keep out of his voice at moments, he spoke simply, as one man will speak to another, very simply, not trying to create an impression. He talked about trees as some men talk of ships, because they love them and the element they stand for. And Stephen, the awkward, the bashful, the tongue-tied, heard herself talking in her turn, quite freely, heard herself asking him endless questions about forestry, farming and the care of vast orchards; thoughtful questions, unromantic but apt—such as one man will ask of another.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Once out on the pavement Stephen hailed the first taxi she met; she was quite absurdly elated. ‘Drive to the Piccadilly end of Bond Street,’ she ordered, as she jumped in and slammed the door. Then she put her head quickly out of the window: ‘And when you get to the corner, please stop. I don’t want you to drive along Bond Street, I’ll walk. I want you to stop at the Piccadilly corner.’ But when she was actually standing on the corner—the left-hand corner—she began to feel doubtful as to which side of Bond Street she ought to tackle first. Should she try the right side or keep to the left? She decided to try the right side. Crossing over, she started to walk along slowly. At every jeweller’s shop she stood still and gazed at the wares displayed in the window. Now she was worried by quite a new problem, the problem of stones, there were so many kinds. Emeralds or rubies or perhaps just plain diamonds? Well, certainly neither emeralds nor rubies—Angela’s colouring demanded whiteness. Whiteness—she had it! Pearls—no, one pearl, one flawless pearl and set as a ring. Angela had once described such a ring with envy, but alas, it had been born in Paris. People stared at the masculine-looking girl who seemed so intent upon feminine adornments. And some one, a man, laughed and nudged his companion: ‘Look at that! What is it?’ ‘My God! What indeed?’ She heard them and suddenly felt less elated as she made her way into the shop. She said rather loudly: ‘I want a pearl ring.’ ‘A pearl ring? What kind, madam?’ She hesitated, unable now to describe what she did want: ‘I don’t quite know—but it must be a large one.’ ‘For yourself?’ And she thought that the man smiled a little. Of course he did nothing of the kind; but she stammered: ‘No—oh, no—it’s not for myself, it’s for a friend. She’s asked me to choose her a large pearl ring.’ To her own ears the words sounded foolish and flustered. There was nothing in that shop that fulfilled her requirements, so once more she must face the guns of Bond Street. Now she quickened her steps and found herself striding; modifying her pace she found herself dawdling; and always she was conscious of people who stared, or whom she imagined were staring. She felt sure that the shop assistants looked doubtful when she asked for a large and flawless pearl ring; and catching a glimpse of her reflection in a glass, she decided that naturally they would look doubtful—her appearance suggested neither pearls nor their price. She slipped a surreptitious hand into her pocket, gaining courage from the comforting feel of her cheque book.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  THREE WEEKS LATER, ANAÏS PHONED me, sounding breathless. “We’re going to a party in Malibu on Sunday where Renate’s director friend Jimmy Bridges and his producer, Alan Miller, are going to be. Have you heard of Alan Miller?” “No.” “Well, me neither, but he’s the producer on Apple Lose Her.” “Apple Loser?” “The Western with Brando.” “Appaloosa! Did James Bridges tell Renate he would be interested in directing Spy?” “No, Renate said that Bridges has gone commercial. He told her we should get a European director like Antonioni.” If James Bridges didn’t want to direct her novel, I could not understand why Anaïs was so thrilled. “How will you get to Antonioni?” “Jimmy said we need a big producer first, and that Alan Miller, this producer we are going to meet, is a very cultured man, and while he was not a good producer for Apple Loose Her, he could be right for our film, and Jimmy will introduce us at this party! And you’re coming!” “I won’t be any help.” “Of course you will. I need Renate to go, and Renate needs both of us.” I was uncomfortable with Anaïs’s fantasy that my youthful presence could supplant Peter’s absence. But I wanted to see a Malibu party. Besides, if I wasn’t home Sunday afternoon when Neal dragged in after his night out, he might not take me so much for granted. When I arrived at Anaïs’s apartment, she said that Rupert’s brother had picked him up to visit the construction site so that I could drive us to the party in the T-bird. She glanced at me in the driver’s seat. “You look good driving a Thunderbird, Tchrristine. Is that a new dress? It suits you.” I’d fretted over what to wear. I was able to live on my scholarship and loans by almost never buying new clothes. Now, though, I wanted to reflect Anaïs’s sense of costume, dressing creatively with an awareness of color and nuance. So, using my aunt’s employee discount at Bullocks, I’d bought a new dress—a flowered synthetic in a vintage 1930s bias cut, a dress I imagined Anaïs wearing in Paris when she was having her affair with Henry Miller. The repaired and repainted T-bird bounced so much on Renate’s dirt road that I feared we would end up in a ditch, but Anaïs didn’t notice. She was too preoccupied with her plan to present A Spy in the House of Love to Alan Miller. She would play hard to get, she said, so it would be my job to talk up her novels. “You’re studying English literature. That gives you the most credibility,” she assured me.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  The next morning, right after breakfast, I returned to Anaïs’s novels. I had to finish them before I could phone her. I’d saved A Spy in the House of Love for last because it looked so plain without any illustrations, published by British Book Centre (unlike the other books that had been published, I’d noted, by Gemor Press). It turned out to be the best read, though, sort of an inside-out detective story. I thrilled to this novel’s minor key. Its spare sentences suggested something secret and forbidden. Its mood incongruously brought back the thrill I’d sought as a kid going out alone at dusk by the incinerator in our alley. The principal character, Sabina, who had appeared sporadically in the other novels, was in this one an actress living a double life. She had a loving husband but also many lovers whom she visited out of town for weeks. She lied to her husband that she was performing in regional playhouses, and for some reason he always believed her. When Sabina returned home, she felt relieved to be in her husband’s protective arms but soon itched to escape and enjoy her risky behavior again. Much of this novel I couldn’t understand any better than the others, especially the ending where Sabina literally dissolved into a puddle of tears out of guilt when a detective she’d invited to follow her confronted her with her infidelity. Her friend Djuna then “reconstituted” her by saying that although Sabina had never been true to one man, she had always been true to the essence of love. I wondered if Anaïs was the main character Sabina, the seductress wrapped in mystery and a black cape, traveling from lover to lover. The description of Sabina’s husband Alan sounded like Anaïs’s husband Hugo—“above average tallness so that he must carry his head a little bent.” Could it be that Anaïs had lovers in other cities, as Sabina did? No, that was impossible. Anaïs was too pure and good to be the deceptive Sabina. I’d never seen married people so in love as she and Hugo. Anyway, everyone knew that novels were made up, not real life. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] When my four-foot-eleven godmother returned from her weekend carrying a doll-sized suitcase, I was scribbling in my diary, trying to imitate Anaïs’s poetic prose. Lenore, excited about what she’d learned in her sensory awareness workshop, told me how they’d practiced eating a grape slowly and consciously. Her description of holding the pliant grape in her fingers made me think guiltily about touching Jean-Jacques’s penis, but Lenore, running in a little trot to turn on a Ravi Shankar recording, didn’t notice my flush. She went right to work patiently tying knots into a gauzy weaving spread out on one of the worktables. I knew that her weaving was one of her forms of meditation, so I tiptoed as I went into to the kitchen to phone Anaïs.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  I’d enjoyed learning about the early Japanese diarists whose aesthetic was to make imperceptible the line between fact and the imagined. But now I was trying to write about boring spinster and invalid Alice James, so instead of writing, I was fantasizing about a pirate with a British accent I’d met at our annual Halloween party. Our eyes had connected over the punch bowl and in less than two hours, his pirate breeches and my Old West saloon girl gown were on the floor of my upstairs bedroom, and we were naked on my mattress. For the life of me, though, I could not recall his name. I noticed Don standing over me. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a guy at the front door who says he met you at our party, Philip Forester?” Right! That was his name! Don and my other commune mates were gawking from the top of the stairs when I greeted Philip. In order to get some privacy, I took him to my bedroom and shut the door. With an adorable grin Philip produced from the pocket of his slinky shirt an expertly rolled joint, lit it, and handed it to me. I knew I shouldn’t smoke because it was a weeknight, and in our house pot was reserved for socializing on weekends. But I was entranced again by Philip’s Michael Caine-in-Alfie accent, his buttery hair and blue eyes, and his beautiful face that matched Anaïs’s description of Rupert’s sensitive face when they’d met. I had decided it was high time I found my own Rupert, a lover and devoted domestic partner, whose sensuous nature would keep me connected to the earth. I saw how happy Rupert made Anaïs, and I wanted that. So, copying how she materialized what she desired by writing in her diary, I’d written a portrait of a younger, less cornball Rupert in mine, and now assumed Philip was the manifestation. However, Philip Forester, who was repping a Carnaby Street fashion line in LA, didn’t fit in with my commune. Politicos, like my commune members, and hippies, like Philip, were in opposing camps. My commune family rejected Philip as a new age capitalist. It was West Side Story all over again: my leftist-feminist Maria in love with his mercantile, joint-toking Tony; my commune as Maria’s disapproving family. It was just the sort of romantic melodrama Anaïs and Renate would have loved. When it happened, though, Anaïs was on an extended trip to Asia for Westways magazine, accompanied by Rupert as her paid photographer, and Renate had sequestered herself “incommunicado” in her last creative resurgence, painting wall-sized canvases of trompe l’oeil nature scenes. I was on my own, and when Philip asked to share my room until his commissions came in, I ignored the commune rule that overnight guests not stay longer than two weeks. At the commune’s Sunday night meeting, Don, refusing to look at me, said, “Bob, as president of the house, has something to tell you.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  After we picked up Renate, the three of us cooed over one another’s clothes. Renate wore a low-cut black sheath that could be interpreted as mourning garb, and Anaïs was resplendent in a violet A-line dress. I had to park several blocks up the street on Malibu Colony Road, which was really an alley behind the strip of beach houses. Anaïs, Renate, and I entered the open front door to find guests in shorts and bikini swimsuits milling about. I was immediately self-conscious for being overdressed, but Anaïs and Renate were unfazed. They were used to standing out and carried themselves like regal movie stars of an earlier era. We wandered around until Renate found her friend, James Bridges. He and his partner Jack Larson enclosed Renate in a long hug. She started to tear up but fought it off and, with her formal Viennese manners, introduced Anaïs and me. I stared at Jack Larson because I recognized him as Superman’s sidekick, Jimmy Olsen, from the TV series. James Bridges, whom I now thought of as Superman’s partner’s partner, told us that he’d seen Alan Miller earlier, but that the producer had disappeared upstairs for a high stakes poker game. We should just enjoy ourselves and circulate until the game broke up. Anaïs, Renate, and I settled into director’s chairs on the second-floor deck enjoying the ocean view. Several people wandered out to the deck but, not seeing anyone important, moved on. A few people recognized Renate and awkwardly offered condolences about Peter, then rushed away. Renate shrugged. “People in Hollywood think bad fortune is infectious.” She rose to leave. “I’m going to see if Jack will give me a lift home. I’m afraid I will be the kiss of death for your movie quest, Anaïs.” Just then, we heard a group of men guffawing and cursing on their way down the stairs. Someone growled, “You’re never getting me into another game, Alan. No one can be that lucky.” Through the open French doors, we could see several men shaking hands. Someone punched the arm of a smiling man. “Hey, Alan, if you make a movie with all the money you just skinned, gimme a job, will ya? I’m gonna need it after today.” Anaïs hissed to Renate, “The winner is Alan Miller. Stay!” Renate sank back into her chair just as Alan strolled out onto our deck. He sat in a director’s chair and started counting a huge stack of bills. He had small, well-shaped hands, though the rest of him was muscular and stocky. We all stared at the cash, waiting for him to finish counting. When he got to the end, a young actor who’d gotten up to leave said, “How much?” Alan answered him with a George Raft interpretation. “If I told you I’d have to kill you.” To my surprise, Renate jumped in. “Do you always win?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  What distinguishes Boccaccio’s version from the others is the advantage he takes of one further permutation of the story’s basic elements: three beds and a cot in a darkened room, where at different times during the night a husband and wife, their nubile daughter, and two young male lodgers all share their bed by accident or design with more than one of the others. In Chaucer’s version, the tale ends chaotically with the beating and humiliation of the host, a crooked miller, and his awareness that his daughter has been seduced. Boccaccio on the other hand resolves the story to everyone’s satisfaction by having the wife move swiftly into her daughter’s bed, from which she declares that the girl’s honour has remained unimpaired, being supported in her claim by the second lodger’s pretence that his companion has been dreaming. A classic instance of Boccaccio’s delight in telling a complicated, vivid and dramatic narrative is the story of Pietro Boccamazza and Agnolella (V, 3), which incidentally mirrors and documents the lawlessness and factional strife prevalent in the Roman countryside during the ‘Babylonian Captivity’ of the papacy in Avignon. From the initial description of the runaway lovers departing from Rome on horseback to the final account of their marriage and return to the city, the story proceeds via a series of exciting episodes in a manner that foreshadows in rudimentary form the technique adopted by the outstanding narrative poet of the Italian Renaissance, Ludovico Ariosto, in the Orlando furioso . Ariosto so arranges the several strands of the narrative as to lead the reader to a climax in one episode, then switching to another, likewise taking that to a moment of crisis, and so on before he eventually returns to an earlier episode to describe what happened next. In the same way, Boccaccio’s story proceeds alternately from crisis to crisis in the fortunes of the two main characters. When the lovers take a wrong turning, leading to their being set upon by an armed band, Agnolella escapes into a forest, whilst Pietro is seized and about to be hanged from a tree when his captors are in turn attacked by a second armed band. Pietro flees into the forest, where he spends the whole day in a fruitless search for his beloved before tethering his horse to an oak tree and climbing into its upper branches to preserve himself from being attacked by wild beasts and to await the dawn. The scene switches to the cottage of an elderly couple where Agnolella has taken refuge, but the cottage is invaded by yet another armed band. She hides under a pile of straw, narrowly avoiding death from a spear thrown carelessly into the straw by one of the brigands. Once they have left, she is led to safety in a nearby castle.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Bob looked at me kindly through his colorless eyelashes and said, almost apologetically, “We have voted, and it was decided that if Philip does not leave immediately, you have to move out.” I failed to mourn the loss of my commune family—probably because Philip provided me with so much mood-lifting weed. Using a ritual that Philip had learned from the Beatles’ own swami to find a rental, I drew in lipstick on my commune bedroom window a child’s stick figure picture of a house with wavy lines behind it. Sure enough, in the next day’s LA Times classifieds, we found a beach house for rent that we could just afford. With its steeple roof, it looked like my drawing. Originally built as a real estate office, it had no heat or insulation, and its whitewashed walls resembled a movie set, the paint peeling as if an art director’s crew had aged it. Tall, unscreened Dutch windows opened onto the Pacific Ocean, which was so near it appeared we were at sea. I fall in love with houses the way I fall in love with men, at first sight, and Philip and I rented the beach house before anyone else could. We furnished it with a king-sized waterbed, dangled crystals on threads from the window frames, and from the rafters we hung a clear round fishbowl in which swam a brilliant blue betta that my cat Jadu watched circle all day. Philip bought me a Victorian claw-footed tub and placed it under a window. It was hooked up to the kitchen faucet by a removable hose and emptied onto our patio downstairs, which was always buffeted by waves. So began our life of play magic, getting high, bikini beach days in our ocean backyard, making love in our heated waterbed, and taking moonbaths together in the tub with the Dutch windows flung open onto the sea, unfiltered moonlight falling on our slender, wet bodies. I was ecstatic. I was going to be like Anaïs—in tune with the rhythms of nature and my inner rhythms, as she was when she’d lived on her houseboat on the Seine. I was going to have it all: Philip to love me, a house on the water, shelves full of books, artistic friends, the fun of filmmaking, a life of laughter and play. One afternoon, Anaïs phoned. “Oh, I’m so glad I reached you. I was so worried!” she cried. “I called the commune, and they said you weren’t there anymore.” “Didn’t they give you my new phone number?” “No. Rupert finally got the idea to try information.” “I’m fine. I’m great. I didn’t know you were back yet. Can I come tomorrow?” [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] The next day at her front door, Anaïs sang, “Tristine, you have to visit Bali! Every person you meet there is an artist! A whole country of artists!”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  As the musicians began to play, slightly out of sync, I took it as my cue to get into character. The givens were that I was a highly cultured, ladylike coed, sitting knees together, ankles crossed, hands gracefully folded in my lap. I was so interested in chamber music that I really wanted to be invited again to listen to Rupert’s quintet. In my imagination I practiced the lines I would say to him before I left, so that he would invite me back in Anaïs’s absence, and I could do my surveillance. My life had gone from being that of a shy girl from the Valley in hand-me-downs to that of a future college professor, who was also a spy like Mata Hari inside a sophisticated, decadent world. I was doing espionage for the world’s only female bigamist. It was surreal, as I now understood surrealism from the woman who’d known the surrealists in Paris. I was living inside her dreamscape and flying with her past ordinary life as though lifted by a sudden wind, free from the grim realism of existentialism. Anaïs had quieted her breathing and adjusted the rhythm of her diary writing to Rupert’s strokes on the cello. The script from the fine point of her Montblanc slanted deeply forward, pulled by the future, her high loops reaching for the sky. I marveled at the serenity of her face, the face of Djuna, wise and centered, calm as the mirrored surface of a lake. How was it possible with the life she led? CHAPTER 18 Los Angeles, California, 1964 TRISTINE EVERYTHING WENT ACCORDING TO PLAN. When Anaïs left for New York, Rupert invited me to his chamber music evenings and accepted my offer to help at the construction site. The first Saturday I showed up and desultorily added some small rocks to a wheelbarrow, as Rupert hauled lumber around shirtless and went on about how much he missed Anaïs whenever she was gone. He didn’t express any suspicions about her, nor did I have to fight off any advances from him. At the next chamber music evening he complimented me on looking pretty, but he regularly complimented every woman there. However, the following Saturday, when I wore jeans to help him move rocks, he said, “You should wear skirts. I’ve seen your legs; you shouldn’t hide them.” Thereafter, I wore pants, even to listen to Mozart. I finished my semester-end exams and watched my fellow students cheerfully disperse for the winter holiday. I was already depressed at the thought of going to my mother’s house for Christmas. Rupert, too, was blue when I visited him at the building site. Anaïs wouldn’t be back until after the holidays. He took a swig from the beer I’d picked up and asked, “Do you want to go to a party with me tonight?” “You mean like a date? No.” “No, as Anaïs’s friend.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Therefore come quickly, come embrace me soon; I sing to think you may!’ All of her companions surmised from this song that Filomena was engrossed in some new and exciting love; and since the words seemed to imply that she had gone beyond the there exchange of amorous glances, some of those present, supposing her to have savoured the fruits of her love, were not a little envious. But when her song was finished, the queen, remembering that the following day was a Friday, graciously addressed the whole company as follows: ‘Noble ladies, young gentlemen, tomorrow as you know is the day that is consecrated to the Passion of Our Lord, and you will doubtless recall that when Neifile was our queen, 3 we observed it devoutly, abstaining from our agreeable discussions, not only on that day, but on the ensuing Saturday. Wherefore, being desirous to follow the good example which Neifile has set us, I feel that for the next two days it would be seemly for us to suspend our pleasant storytelling, as we did last week, and meditate upon the things that were done on those two days for the salvation of our souls.’ The queen’s devout words commanded general approval, and so, a goodly portion of the night being already spent, she dismissed the whole company and they all betook themselves to their rest. Here ends the Seventh Day of the Decameron

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Rupert stood at her side, beaming his Hollywood smile. He put down their tiny poodle Piccolo, who’d been squirming in his arms, and handed me his snapshots from Bali, pointing out his favorite—of Anaïs in a swimsuit, up to her calves in the calm surf. “Look at what a great figure Anaïs still has,” he boasted. “Like a girl.” She was then sixty-nine. My jaw dropped at how lithe and youthful and happy she looked. It was just the reaction Rupert was looking for. Satisfied, he left to take Piccolo to the park. I was bursting to tell Anaïs that I’d found my own Rupert and fallen in love, but she lilted, “Before we have our talk, let me show you the diaries I brought back from Japan.” She had them spread out on the lid of the grand piano and gracefully unfolded each accordion diary for me, one with images of dragonflies on its cover, another with delicate flowers, another in which she’d begun to write, black with a dashing orange stripe. I compared her delicate handwriting and neat margins with the uneven scribbling in my own journals. My writing was irregular and runaway, and my books were big, heavy things that would endure all my ramblings. When Anaïs closed the accordion diary and glided toward the sliding glass doors, I erupted with my news about living with Philip at the beach house, the words gushing up like soda from a shaken bottle. I begged Anaïs, “Will you and Rupert come to dinner at the beach house to meet Philip? He’s a great cook.” “Of course.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to meet him. I know Rupert and I will love him if you do.” My heart leapt in gratitude. I threw my arms around her, thanking her, the two of us standing at the unopened sliding glass door, the sun streaming in on the cold, clear day. “I fell in love, too,” she said, “with the rock and sand gardens in Japan. Rupert took me to Ryoanji, and the garden was so tranquil I wished I could bring it home.” She pointed down to a white rectangle at our feet. “So Rupert made me a miniature sand garden here.” Rupert had removed some of the floor bricks to create the sand-filled hollow at our feet. Next to the rectangle of white sand lay some small rocks and a miniature rake. Anaïs kneeled Japanese-style, resting lightly on her ankles. I tried to imitate her, but my knees tottered on the way down. I attempted to balance on my heels, but they dug into my behind uncomfortably, so I sprawled, supporting myself on one arm. Still poised on her ankles, Anaïs leaned forward to pick up the miniature rake. She began to pull it slowly, carefully through the sand, creating a pattern of parallel rolling waves. I had the impulse to grab the rake from her hand, the movement looked so pleasurable.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  THREE WEEKS LATER, ANAÏS PHONED me, sounding breathless. “We’re going to a party in Malibu on Sunday where Renate’s director friend Jimmy Bridges and his producer, Alan Miller, are going to be. Have you heard of Alan Miller?” “No.” “Well, me neither, but he’s the producer on Apple Lose Her.” “Apple Loser?” “The Western with Brando.” “Appaloosa! Did James Bridges tell Renate he would be interested in directing Spy?” “No, Renate said that Bridges has gone commercial. He told her we should get a European director like Antonioni.” If James Bridges didn’t want to direct her novel, I could not understand why Anaïs was so thrilled. “How will you get to Antonioni?” “Jimmy said we need a big producer first, and that Alan Miller, this producer we are going to meet, is a very cultured man, and while he was not a good producer for Apple Loose Her, he could be right for our film, and Jimmy will introduce us at this party! And you’re coming!” “I won’t be any help.” “Of course you will. I need Renate to go, and Renate needs both of us.” I was uncomfortable with Anaïs’s fantasy that my youthful presence could supplant Peter’s absence. But I wanted to see a Malibu party. Besides, if I wasn’t home Sunday afternoon when Neal dragged in after his night out, he might not take me so much for granted. When I arrived at Anaïs’s apartment, she said that Rupert’s brother had picked him up to visit the construction site so that I could drive us to the party in the T-bird. She glanced at me in the driver’s seat. “You look good driving a Thunderbird, Tchrristine. Is that a new dress? It suits you.” I’d fretted over what to wear. I was able to live on my scholarship and loans by almost never buying new clothes. Now, though, I wanted to reflect Anaïs’s sense of costume, dressing creatively with an awareness of color and nuance. So, using my aunt’s employee discount at Bullocks, I’d bought a new dress—a flowered synthetic in a vintage 1930s bias cut, a dress I imagined Anaïs wearing in Paris when she was having her affair with Henry Miller. The repaired and repainted T-bird bounced so much on Renate’s dirt road that I feared we would end up in a ditch, but Anaïs didn’t notice. She was too preoccupied with her plan to present A Spy in the House of Love to Alan Miller. She would play hard to get, she said, so it would be my job to talk up her novels. “You’re studying English literature. That gives you the most credibility,” she assured me.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  When my plane descended home, the Los Angeles basin looked unbearably flat and suffocating. Before I unfastened my seat belt, I had decided that I was going to become a college professor so that I’d have summers off and could go back to Italy for three months every year. My European trip had changed me. I’d learned about the US involvement in Vietnam, acquired a sympathy for socialism, and developed, as Anaïs had predicted, my own seductive Sabina persona. She descended the ramp with me at LAX, ready to take advantage of the “free love” ethos wending its way down the coast from San Francisco. My new sexual confidence and the new sexual freedom in the air worked handily with my new goal of becoming a professor. Since I would now have to spend inordinate hours cracking the books, I could no longer waste time with casual dating. If I met a guy I was attracted to, I intended to have sex with him right away to see if we were compatible, and then I could get right back to studying. No longer able to tolerate the restrictions of sorority life, I moved off Frat Row into my own apartment. Actually I moved considerably off campus, because the further one ventured into the surrounding ghetto, the cheaper the rent. My plans for devoted studying immediately went awry, though. I was just settling in for a full night of cramming for a morning essay test when a former sorority sister phoned to remind me that I’d agreed to a blind date she’d set up for that night. Despite my pleading, she would not let me out of it. When Harry Browne arrived at my apartment, my heart sank. He was old, at least thirty, with too short a haircut, and wearing a boxy business suit. He announced, “I made reservations for us at a restaurant in Malibu. The Holiday House.” Damn! It would take an hour and a half to drive to Malibu, three hours round trip. It would be midnight before we got back and I could start reading Cliff’s Notes on The Faerie Queene. My mood lifted, though, when we pulled into the parking lot and I heard the crashing surf, saw the glassed-in restaurant that hung over the Pacific in a graceful arc, and smelled butter and garlic infusing the salt air. When we entered, a brunette, chignoned hostess introduced herself as Renate Druks. Learning that this was our first time at Holiday House, she began her routine: “Our beautiful modernist building was designed by Richard Neutra in 1950—” “Is your accent German?” I asked, wanting to show off my travel experience. “Viennese,” she responded haughtily.